


Mid summer rain

by Naeevin



Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/F, I never wrote a fic send help, Kuvopal, Lesbian Character, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Older Characters, Short & Sweet, Short One Shot, opalvira - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-12
Updated: 2020-07-12
Packaged: 2021-03-05 03:07:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,484
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25227283
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Naeevin/pseuds/Naeevin
Summary: "No [...] I can't talk with my mother about it. She wouldn't understand." Opal replied when she realized her aunt’s words were marked firmly between the liquid noises of the summer rain.
Relationships: Kuvira/Opal (Avatar), Lin Beifong/Kya II
Comments: 18
Kudos: 197





	Mid summer rain

...

"I'm sorry kid, but if you need to talk about teenage dramas I'm not the right person. Ask your mother. "

It started to rain. Too lost in her thoughts while running, she replayed the last few minutes in her mind. She remembered screaming.  
The memory started to blur and fade away as she stopped at the sight of her aunt meditating, sitting on the long porch opening into the garden.  
Time started to freeze. Raindrops slipped between the tiles falling on the wood floor with an intermittent rhythm, inviting for contemplation. 

The woman was impeccable in her composure, her legs crossed wrapped in light gray trousers and white tank top delicately dressed the toned muscles of the bust. A cup of tea smoked next to her figure, her hands slightly departed, relaxed on her lap and her eyes were closed, totally absorbed.  
Or this was what Opal thought when she stopped running.  
Heart pounded in her chest.

She noticed her aunt's eyes stayed closed, her position undisturbed despite Opal deciding to sit down behind her. Hugging her folded legs into her chest and curving her back against her aunt’s perfectly straight, it felt strange.   
It was something new, something she had missed in her life and yet familiar, like a ritual. 

"No... I don't... I don't want to and I can't talk with my mother about it. She wouldn't understand." Opal replied when she realized her aunt’s words were marked firmly between the liquid noises of the summer rain.

She didn't know how she got there but she knew it was the only place to be in that exact moment.   
It was like everything lead towards this.

The girl tried to calm her heartbeat between heavy breaths caused from the race and the storm that echoed in her chest, in her mind, now forming new memories. After a short moment she didn’t understand if her ears cleared at the sound of the rain or if her turmoil had found serenity as she began to become aware of her surroundings.  
She could feel Lin's warm skin and deep breaths flowing through her body, swelling lungs and slowly releasing. The girl found herself trying the same, loosening the grip around her legs, trying to calm the pace of her breath following her aunt’s.  
Everything else seemed to settle and dissolve in the silence of the rain.

"Aunt Lin.. how.. did it happen between you and Kya?" Her voice barely trembled when the words instinctively escaped from her mouth. She felt a stranger to her own voice, to her own softly uttered question and it surprised her when the blurred memory of her aunt began to form in her mind, showing Lin holding the water tribe woman in her arms in the darkness of the room, stealing with her eyes a part of the most intimate moment she had ever witnessed between the two.

"What do you mean?" she lashed the still air with her harsh and intense tone. 

Opal shortly inhaled and released her breath, trembling at the sharp energy radiating from the woman, wounding the atmosphere. Shaking her stomach.  
"How did you understand that you feel something for her?" she clarified, wondering about the real reason of her own question.  
"What are you exactly asking me, Opal?" She offered, noticing how the girl had imperceptibly retracted. Opal bit her lip in search of a temporary sedative to her anxiety beginning to increase inside. 

  
"I ... I think I have feelings for someone I shouldn't even think about." She said surprised at her own statement. She felt free of any rational control. She needed to fight that feeling and win back her rationality but something pushed her to continue, to be let out.  
_Not yet._

"Mh. do you really care if you do?” The woman asked cautiously. Her heart began to beat faster.  
"..no, but it could be a potential problem for some people... I just, I would like to know if what I'm feeling is real or I'm just... flying high with my imagination." She revealed, heart in her throat, breath as short as an after rush. It was exhausting, it was extremely exhausting trying to control herself when all she wanted was to let go of that iron grip.  
She needed to let out what resided within her, she needed an answer. To know that she wasn't exaggerating, that those emotions could have their right to _exist_.

"If you're here to ask me, you already know the answer." 

Her heart stopped for an instant.  
She was right. Opal knew it, she had always known it. Now it seemed as if electricity passed through every memory, linking them together like a circuit, lighting something inside her. A sudden awareness made room for a sense of shame that slipped inside her, quickly turning into guilt.

_I hate you! I have no idea how you are still in my life when all you do is ruin it! DAMN, I LOATHE YOU!_

She closed her eyes at the sound of her own voice, as the scene thundered in the girl’s head and vanished in the same way it started. Hands in brown messy hair, head sunken between her thin legs.  
She found her words in a moment of lucidity and let her tongue mumble them, interrupting the silence.  
"It's just that I, I.. recognize i treat this person poorly most of the time... and I don't understand why. I mean, she makes me so angry and... and I start say things I don't... feel” she sighed.

Lin in her deadpan calm let Opal release her tensions. She understood her words, the restlessness that harbored her heart. She understood her niece’s feelings more than she would have liked to admit, and that certainly went beyond any bodily perception. The woman could feel Opal's affliction as if it belonged to her. So she decided to give the girl the space to breathe, to give her something to lean on and help her in the way her younger self needed too.

“Our family has always been quite abrasive. Especially when it comes to expressing our affection. Your grandmother, instead of lulling, lifted me as a weight for her training to put me to sleep when I was still a toddler. Your mother and I slammed the ground on each other face in order to heal our relationship, and every time I want to express my affection for Kya, I punch her shoulder or nudge her on the ribs. Beifongs are proud, and don’t exactly know how to handle these things but you are _different_ " Lin’s voice shouted clear and controlled the whole time, taking breaks when she needed it, sensing Opal's breathing change and then settle down. She kept her tone calm until she eventually pressed on the last word to purposely get her niece’s full attention. 

"Why?" The peaceful rain barely broke at the hesitant whisper. 

“Because you are caring. You often feel sorry about your behavior because you are a different person. You have an unusual kindness, a different sensitivity, an extraneous tenderness to our family"

Opal got lost in those words and for a moment believed the wooded table on which she sat disappeared. The vulnerability of that moment made her feel torn. She felt as if her chest and skull were open and anyone who walked by could see her inside. She was scared to feel this fragile, yet she felt... a sort of pride growing inside her.  
"And is it... something... bad?" Asking in a breath. 

“Yes, when you don’t know how to protect yourself. People take advantage of it. But you know how to handle it, and let it make you an unique person rather than let it weaken you." The woman asserted and Opal felt some relief in those words that allowed her to untie her arms from her legs. It gave Opal the opportunity to relax her back and rest it evenly on Lin's, which continued to be erected as if she were ready to rise from the porch floor at any moment and float, yet solid enough to anchor herself firmly to the ground.  
Opal wondered if one day it would be possible for her to achieve the balance the woman managed to reach and maybe... just maybe.. be someone her aunt would be proud of.  
Talking to her, made the girl realize she was getting closer to a resolution, to find peace inside the center of her chaos.  
She rested her head between Lin's shoulder blades and relaxed her neck looking at the ceiling. Opal narrowed her eyes when her thoughts resurfaced.  
"I feel so guilty.. I told her terrible things and she.. she didn’t deserve them even if she is the cause of my... damn, I don't even know how to call it. I don’t know what to do!" she confided in a firmer voice and a poignant, impatient tone, looking for a solution. 

“Talk to _her_ directly. Speak your mind and heart free to give her the opportunity to forgive you and to forgive yourself." Lin explained easily, opening her eyes to watch the rain fall lazily in large drops on the wooden slabs, in the rich leafed ground, releasing that unmistakable scent mixed with the black tea fragrance as it ceased its steam.

A smile started to appear on her face before holding it when Opal's voice distilled into the air. "How do you know..?" Lin clearly knew what she was referring to. "Spirits! Do you think I'm dumb, kid? I can see with both my eyes and feet. I'm watching you." She threatened in a serious voice closing her eyes still repressing her smile.  
Lin heard more than Opal could imagine. She knew about the fight that led her niece to lose control. The woman knew what was happening to her and about the feelings that had started thrive inside Opal long, long before she and Kya decided to spend the summer in Zaofu to get away from the chaos of the city.  
And then Opal asked that question, quieter than a soft breeze as something shook like an earthquake inside her.  
“What do you feel when you're close to Kya?" 

Opal kept her silence, waiting for an answer from Lin and believed it would never come. Not only caused by the low tone in which she had pronounced it. She knew she had gone over her aunt’s limit and pondered if she made a mistake.   
Opal lifted her head from Lin’s back and looked straight ahead at the wooden wall. 

"I'm sorry-" "I feel the luckiest woman on Earth."  
The two voices slowly crossed each other and Opal felt grateful she received an answer. It was the most Lin allowed herself to share from the beginning of that summer. Lin on her side let that warm feeling fulfill her completely. Her lips drew a smile.  
_Kya makes me feel deeply loved_.

"What do you feel when you're with Kuvira?" Lin decided to turn that question back to Opal and from the exact moment the name came out of her mouth she could precisely feel Opal’s heart start to roughly pump blood in her veins again as if she had awakened from a lethargic state. Even if Opal hadn't answered, Lin had already gotten everything she needed to know from that single reaction. 

"I feel .. as if i’m floating and my stomach goes upside down, my heart beats faster and.. " She didn’t feel the warm tears streak her red cheeks and wet her face until a sob stole her words away and blocked them. Opal felt her throat tighten and with one hand she brushed the strands of thin hair away from her face. She sighed and kept crying, hearing the rain become finer and delicate on the surfaces on which it fell.

"Terrible isn't it? It took my whole life to learn it. Love.. It makes you vulnerable. It rips your chest, then opens up your heart. It means that they can get inside you and mess you up but sometimes you decide to trust that they won't. And honestly, some people will surprise you. But the fact is, only one will make you understand how much is worth it. However, I can assure you: if anything happens to you, i'll metal bend the shit off of her. "  
Lightly, Opal felt a hand rest on her head, the warm contact made the girl open her eyes and turned her head to look back, capturing her aunt’s clear gaze in her green pools of water, almost hazel in the afternoon light, filled with tears. 

What Opal did not know was that Lin was aware of the other girl's presence hidden around the corner since the last time she spoke her name. She knew that Kuvira had ran there looking for Opal after the fight. She also knew that at the honeyed sound of her niece’s voice, the girl heavily slid her back on the wall until she sat on the floor in silence. She didn't say a word, she didn't make any noise. And Lin could almost feel guilt growing inside Kuvira with every word that she started to eavesdrop. 

Lin kept the contact with Opal until she stopped crying and closed her eyes. The girl’s folded legs were now under her own weight while she sat on her knees, a hand on the ground and another to her aunt’s forearm to keep herself steady. She lightly, tenderly brushed the thumb on Lin’s old skin with unspoken gratefulness as she then lowered her head trying to regulate her breathing, and Lin reserved her all the time she needed.  
They stayed still, as the time extended to crawl.

"Thank you aunt Lin.." said once again in a sigh between heavy swollen lips. Opal raised her eyes again to meet her pale green, usually intense but now also observing her with care. 

"Go now. She is searching for you." Lin said when she heard Kuvira get up still hidden around the corner. She didn't move and Lin understood.  
After an approval nod from Opal, she observed her bright eyes sparkle through her eyelashes beaded with tears for one last time and turned to pick up her black tea from the ground. Sitting down, she took a sip, looking at her niece in the peripheral view getting up and stretch her slender legs covered in light shorts contrasting her beautiful dark skin. 

Lin thought how lightheartedly after all her niece’s youth was, as Opal started her walk after revealing a sweet smile on her lips. And before turning the corner, Lin captured the girl’s attention one last time. "and never come back for these drama shits again." 

Opal's eyes widened. Shining in the daylight.  
The sound of a hearty, crystalline laugh spread all over the place bringing the sun in the wooded porch, flourishing inside Lin’s chest.  
  


_"I love you too"._

**Author's Note:**

> For K, the one who made this story see the light. Thank you immensely.
> 
> -
> 
> If you made it till here, you’ve been brave enough to earn a cookie.  
> This is my first experiment ever but these ships really needs more recognition than my lazy writing, so please guys do something about it!
> 
> Being serious, thanks a lot for reading this little story. If you feel like it, let me know what you think about, it would make my day!


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